76 Year Old Geoff flying high on eBay

I got a really strange email the other day which I have posted below. My curiosity was aroused so I decided to pick the phone up to Geoff and see if I could get a bit more background on what on earth the email was about.

I really wanted to thank you for introducing me to Boffer. I am 76 years old and I was going to jack in eBay due to various reasons. However after reading your article about Boffer I decided to continue. Tamebay and Boffer have saved my business. So thank you.
Best Regards
Geoff Rosenbloom

Who is Geoff?

It turns out that Geoff Rosenbloom, who is a 76 year old ex RAF and Logan Air pilot, decided to take up eBay in his spare time.

Starting out on eBay

I got talking to Geoff and he explained how he first got started on eBay around nine years ago. On his travels around the world his XDA PDA was much admired and he started buying them on eBay to sell on his trips.

Six weeks in somewhere like Australia he’d have sold out and be returning home with someone’s discarded Nokia until eBay supplied another XDA.

Selling on eBay

Realising that he could sell spare batteries, cases and cables, Geoff inadvertently became a power seller and started running a substantial ecommerce business from his home. Geoff sells under the ID and now has a feedback score well over 40,000. His secretary Liz used to do the dispatch while Geoff concentrated on the purchasing and listing products on eBay.

When his secretary fell ill, Geoff found himself having to do the whole shooting match, but thankfully he had signed up for Tamebay’s daily emails and so heard about Boffer.

Sourcing and Selling made easy

“I found it really difficult to do everything and was considering giving up on my eBay business. Dispatching stock used to take up a lot of my time, and I didn’t purchase anything for many months. I had no time to research which products to buy and to find suppliers to source them from. However as soon as I came across Boffer it was brilliant, they do all the hard work for me. They recommend a product, they tell me how much it sells for on eBay, they tell me the likely volume of sales, and even how much profit I will potentially make on it. They also write the description and photograph the product. All I have to do is take the photograph and description from Boffer and cut and paste it into my eBay listings. To date I have purchased every single Boffer deal.”

I can see why Geoff finds it easy, for example today’s Boffer is a job lot of 5 Acer Iconia 7” tablets. Boffer have done the research showing that they’re selling in volume on eBay for £89.99. The pictures and description are there to be lifted and dropped into a listing and the Boffer deal works out at £45/unit. As Geoff says “Buying from Boffer and selling on eBay involves not a lot of work for a reasonable return.”

Will Geoff retire?

I asked Geoff what his plans were for the future and if he planned to retire any time soon, Geoff told me “In theory I should have retired 11 years ago but couldn’t face the prospect of sitting at home and withering away. That was the reason that I started selling on eBay as a hobby. Now that my hobby is growing again, I have decided that I might outsource my fulfilment to a third party.”

“It was actually Rachel Fullerton the Business Development Manager for Boffer and eStock who suggested that I should speak to a couple of fulfilment companies who would hold and dispatch the stock for me in future so all I would have to do is the customer services and the purchasing.”

Fulfilment plans for the future

“I actually quite like this idea. I asked her if she can introduce me to a couple of companies so she has arranged a meeting for me with Gary Rees the MD of Seko Synergy. I am planning to fly down to see Gary in the next few weeks and hopefully we will be able to tie up a deal”.

I am being totally serious here; 76 year old Geoff is going to fly down to see Gary. By fly I mean he is going to pilot the plane himself. Geoff still holds his pilot’s licence. According to Geoff “flying a plane is a bit less challenging than holding onto your top rated seller status these days!” All I can say to that is “Good on you, Geoff”.

I really enjoyed talking to Geoff yesterday, he’s a great guy (and he has almost three times as much eBay feedback as I have). I’m now about to put a call into the Guinness Book of Records to see if Geoff is the oldest PowerSeller in the world.

P.S. If you have, or know of anyone with a fantastic story like Geoff’s, we’d love to hear from you and feature your story on Tamebay